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This fall, most students at Georgia’s 35 public colleges and universities will see the smallest tuition increase in a decade—2 ½ %.

But during today/Tuesday’s meeting, the Board of Regents decided for the first time to raise tuition at different rates for students at Georgia’s “research” universities.

Georgia State University students will see a 3 ½ % tuition increase this fall—or $127 more per semester. University of Georgia students will have a 5% increase— averaging $182 more per semester. And the highest spike—for Georgia Tech students—with a 6% increase—translates to $218 more per semester.

The Regents say it’s an effort to keep the universities competitively priced, but for University of Georgia Junior Kimaya Grant, it means spending more hours at her part-time job to make up the difference:

“I’m going to have to work more hours, I know a lot of students, that work here at the bookstore also have another job as well, as well as being a full time student, so it just adds more pressure even more pressure on what is already a tough situation.”

John Millsaps, with the Board of Regents says the tuition hikes are necessary to keep Georgia’s research universities competitive. He used the example of Georgia State’s 3 ½ % tuition increase to explain:

“ What that will allow GSU to do is to address a significant increase of part-time faculty that they’ve had to take on the last 3-4 years to handle budget cuts— so they’ll be able to move away from reliance on part-time faculty and hire full-time faculty.”

The Regents also approved construction projects which will be funded by the state budget—about 315 million toward new buildings, repairs and renovations.